20171224

Water is a very important part of our lives: Your body is made up of about 60% water, we cook with water, bathe in water, water is important in growing food. When the water coming out of your tap isn't of a pure enough quality, life changes quickly: kids get water bottles, parents need to boil water. Now take that inconvenience, and multiply it several times. Imagine that there is no store for water bottles, boiling water includes gathering firewood and making a fire and simply to get your impure drink requires about an hour hike.

The village spring captation on the edge of the village. Clean water!

In order to facilitate the lives of the inhabitants, water points next to their houses have been put in, but in order to push water from the captation to these points, a 20 foot water tower is required. The government here put in the base of the tower, but then they lost interest and funds to finish. That was 18 months ago. Reach Beyond has been involved since the beginning, but this size of water tower project demanded aid from other sources. Now we have returned to continue the project. A platform needed to be constructed on top of the tower to hold the 5,000 L (~1,300 gallon) tank. Kenny, Pedro and I loaded up the pickup as fortunately we were able to drive to this particular community through a small ford and bumpy roads.

There was plenty of work for everyone.

Since this village is on the road system, Katrina, Silas and Scarlett were able to join me on that last day and only missed the tank raising by about an hour. It was great to see them after not having any contact for a few days.

That was the reality of the village of Kawa until they got a spring water captation on the edge of their village. It's still quite a hike from the opposite edge of the village, but it's a clean and sufficient source of water.

The tower has set in this configuration for about 18 months.

The locals helped out a bunch by cutting pieces with our tools and climbing the tower to hand us the materials and after two full days of welding we were ready to raise the tank. They jumped right in by cutting down a couple tall straight trees and leaning them against the tower to create a ramp that allowed them to drag the tank up an inclined plane and they are that much closer to much easier access to healthy water.

How you can pray for us this week:

Pray for God's Will to be done

Pray for the village of Kawa

Pray for our physical health

Pray for the missionaries who are away from family

Anytime I talk about water projects, I can't help but be reminded of the woman at the well from John 4. Jesus says sure, you can drink this water, but you'll only get thirsty again. Not only do our bodies require clean water, but we require it over and over, day after day, month after month, year after year. Jesus promises us a drink of everlasting water. In fact it'll be so much water within us that 'rivers of living water will flow from within' (John 7:38). Are we like that Samaritan woman? Are we asking Jesus to give us a drink of this water? Do we seek the wisdom of Christ? Are we filled with His Holy Spirit to the point where our temples are overflowing with good news?

20171217

Hello friends and family! Hola from Ecuador! What a week it has been. Flying with small humans is no small task. Trekking through airports, managing all the carry-ons… It was quite the ordeal. But, with God's grace we made it to Ecuador.

The family arrived in the capitol city of Quito and adjusted quickly to the high elevation.

In Atlanta, we boarded our plane and they discovered a maintenance issue. So we went back to the gate, de-boarded, walked through the airport to a different gate and plane and left Atlanta 4 hours later than anticipated. When we arrived in Quito, we discovered only ONE of our eight totes full of luggage arrived. We talked to the baggage people and hoped the rest would arrive before we left Quito on Thursday morning.

Exhausted is right! A well deserved nap.

Saturday we went down the road about 10 minutes to Puyo with hope that our luggage would arrive. And praise the Lord that it did. He provided what we needed at the right time. The last 5 totes came in time to get unpacked and settled before Paul leaves for the jungle on Monday.

On Tuesday morning, we packed up the car to drive to Kansas City Airport. Scarlett had a rough day. She was not feeling well before breakfast, she was sick again while we were going through security checkpoints, and once more right after take-off! Since then she has been slowly getting back to eating normally.

Scarlett didn't waste any time roaming the long halls of the airport.

By the time we arrived to Reach Beyond's guest house it was 5 am Wednesday, and everyone was exhausted. We slept for a few hours and then went to lunch. Paul and another missionary went back to the airport late that night to retrieve the rest of the luggage. We got 2 more totes. We were told the rest of our luggage would be delivered to Puyo on Saturday. We were thankful to have enough clothes in our carry-ons for our time in Quito. God showed that He is in control as the luggage that did arrive was enough for Silas to be comfortable and for Paul to be able to work right away once we arrived in Shell.

How you can pray for us this week:

Pray for God's Will to be done

Pray for Paul going into the jungle

Pray for Katrina while Paul is away

Pray for the kids adjusting to living here

Pray for us to find a routine that works

It has been quite the week. Every day we are learning to be content in all circumstances. We are thankful for the missionaries here in Ecuador that have made sure we got to the right places and very thankful for those that can translate for us. We thank God for familiar faces. We are thankful for you! Thank you for praying for us this week.